EAST LANSING – Last we saw the Michigan State basketball program, its players were dejectedly leaving the Breslin Center floor while Purdue’s Trevion Williams celebrated the game-winning shot he had just hit with four seconds left.
That loss dropped the Spartans to 2-4 in Big Ten play, as their January struggles continued and pushed them closer to the NCAA Tournament bubble.
Twenty days later, after a break from games and practices due to COVID-19 cases, the Spartans are at last set to play again when they take on Rutgers on the road on Thursday (7 p.m., FS1).
And when Michigan State finally plays again, it will do so with a new outlook.
“I will approach it…kind of a second season, kind of a new start,” Spartans coach Tom Izzo said. “We’re 0-0 in January and a little bit and we’ll go from there.”
In his 26th season as Michigan State’s head coach and 38th as a member of the team’s staff, Izzo is now navigating a situation he’s never faced before.
Within its 20-day break from games, Michigan State had to go 11 days without a full team practice. While practice often isn’t the most beloved part of a season, players found they didn’t like life without it, either.
“It’s been hard, we’ve been able to get some workouts in here and there, some shots up, but mainly just trying to stay healthy and be safe with this whole thing going on,” Spartans forward Joey Hauser said.
Because he recently recovered from COVID-19 himself, Izzo was able to work players out individually and in small groups throughout the break. Players were also able to do additional film study during the break, and the time off helped some banged-up players get healthy.
The Spartans returned to a full practice for the first on Monday. They’ll get three of those in before Thursday’s game, but the sessions have been decidedly different than they would typically be in late January.
“It is like you’re redoing training camp, except the only difference is the other teams aren’t necessarily redoing training camp,” Izzo said.
Izzo said he talked with multiple other coaches whose programs have gone through breaks from games this season, including Villanova’s Jay Wright. While few situations are identical, Izzo said he’s been able to glean some idea of what to expect when his team returns from its break.
He’s hopeful that his team’s shooting won’t suffer, as most players have been able to work on that throughout the last few weeks. And he’s hopeful that the film study will prevent a dropoff in execution.
What he is worried about is having little physical contact in the last three weeks and how that will affect his team’s defense and rebounding.
“It’ll definitely be different as far as the banging, the rebounding, the defending,” Izzo said.
The Spartans will have to hope they don’t have much of a hangover due to their COVID-19 break. A schedule change this week added a game at No. 7 Iowa on Tuesday, two days after the team will play at No. 13 Ohio State on Sunday. That means the Spartans will now play three road games in a six-day span, two against top-15 teams.
They’ll have to go through that stretch at least somewhat shorthanded. Michigan State will have 11 or 12 players available against Rutgers, Izzo said on Tuesday. Gabe Brown and Davis Smith will both be unavailable due to COVID-19 protocols. Mady Sissoko and Joshua Langford could also be held out because they’ve only recently returned to physical activity after recovering from COVID-19.
Michigan State beat Rutgers on Jan. 5 in its best defensive performance of the season. The Scarlet Knights lost three more consecutive games after that one but broke their losing streak with a road win at Indiana on Sunday.
Izzo said Rutgers looked significantly better in that outing. He has an idea of what to expect from the Scarlet Knights. The bigger question mark is in his own team.
“They’re playing better,” Izzo said of Rutgers. “If I had to tell you how our guys are going to respond, if I looked at the practice, they’ve practiced hard, they’ve been focused. How they’ll respond to 20 days from playing a game, only time’s going to tell.”
"smooth" - Google News
January 28, 2021 at 06:03PM
https://ift.tt/3ahY1l0
Michigan State hopes for smooth return from COVID-19 break vs. Rutgers - MLive.com
"smooth" - Google News
https://ift.tt/30JhCVH
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Michigan State hopes for smooth return from COVID-19 break vs. Rutgers - MLive.com"
Post a Comment